"Indescribable loss": Sir Michael Palin shares tragic news
Sir Michael Palin has revealed that his beloved wife, Helen Gibbins, has died.
Palin made the devastating announcement on his own website, with an update titled ‘Helen’.
“My dearest wife Helen died peacefully in the early hours of Tuesday morning,” he wrote. “She had been suffering with chronic pain for several years, which was compounded a few years ago by a diagnosis of kidney failure.
“We first met on a summer holiday on the Suffolk coast when we were both sixteen and we married in our early twenties. Two and a half weeks ago we celebrated our 57th wedding anniversary.
“Her death is an indescribable loss for myself, our three children and four grandchildren.
“Helen was the bedrock of my life. Her quietly wise judgement informed all my decisions and her humour and practical good sense was at the heart of our life together.
“The family ask that their privacy be respected at this time.”
Just one year prior, Palin had also revealed that the then-79-year-old Helen had moved into respite care, with The Guardian reporting it was due to her body not responding to pain medications.
As he told The Telegraph at the time, “I don’t think you can cure it, but they will help her manage it.
“It’s such a bore. She was so active and still is, mentally. But we’re both getting on a bit. The body is declining. She’s going to be 80 in October, I’m going to be 80 at the beginning of next year.
“We live life with our fingers crossed.”
The 79-year-old comedian had enjoyed over a half-century of marriage with his “dearest wife”, after the two first crossed paths at the tender age of 16, with the pair even celebrating their 57th wedding anniversary mere weeks before her passing.
Gibbins - who spent her days working as both a teacher and a bereavement counsellor - shared three children with Palin - 54-year-old Thomas, 52-year-old William, and 48-year-old Rachel.
In his 2015 interview with The Telegraph, the actor opened up about his experience meeting Gibbins on a holiday in Southwold, naming her “a vision of rebellion”, and how they kept in touch after going home.
Unfortunately, the pair lost touch again for the next two years, until they ran into each other once again through mutual friends at Oxford University.
As Palin himself said of the less-than-ideal start to their lengthy relationship, “you can see fate was actually tightening the screws on us very hard at that time.”
Images: Getty